GREENCASTLE, Pa.—Mitt Romney is known as a man with millions of dollars, but he wants Americans to know that his grandfather wasn't one.

"My dad's dad went broke more than once," the former Massachusetts governor told 200 or so people who had gathered Sunday for the local Lincoln Day dinner in this southern Pennsylvania community. "And my dad learned lessons about the importance of family and of faith and had a great and abiding affection for this country -- lessons he taught me."

The brief biography was a not-so-subtle rejoinder to a claim Democratic President Barack Obama made last week. "I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth," Obama said -- a line his spokesman later said wasn't aimed at his presumptive Republican opponent.

[...]

Romney's father was George Romney, the former Michigan governor and president of American Motors. As his youngest son, Mitt Romney grew up in the tony Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, attended prep school and eventually graduated from the business and law schools at Harvard.

[...]

Romney often says his dad grew up poor. But while George Romney's parents did face a series of difficult circumstances, they knew wealth as well as financial hardship.

Romney's grandfather, Gaskell Romney, was a carpenter who led a prosperous life in a Mormon colony in Mexico, according to the book "The Real Romney," written by two Boston Globe reporters. When Romney's father was born there, the family was wealthy -- until the Mexican revolution forced many of the colony's residents to flee back to the United States, when George was about five years old.

The Romney family lost most of its money and moved from state to state. Gaskell eventually found success again as a builder in Utah, but lost much of his money again in the Great Depression.

"Dad's dad"? Granted, "granddad" isn't as precise, but that's what everyone would have assumed he was talking about and it sounds right. Altho, IIRC, mom's dad was fairly well off as well.

Mitt's efforts to appear to be ordinary always seem off-tone to me. I don't see them as helping him, and to a certain extent they hurt him. His justification for being the better choice for President has always been that he knows what to do with money, so pretending to be just folks mutes that theme.

« Last Edit: April 23, 2012, 09:17:03 pm by Missouri Fox Trotter »

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Quote from: Ignatius of Antioch

He that possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to bear his very silence. — Epistle to the Ephesians 3:21a

Well, by the the time Mitt was a kid, his daddy was pretty rich and famous.

But I guess compared to George W Bush, where you have to go back 4 paternal generations to find a someone who might not have been a millionaire (still a Yale alumni though), he's not quite as blue blood.

Mitt was born in 1947, George was at the time working for the Automobile Manufacturers Association. It was a decent middle-class job, but not millionaire territory. In 1948 he went to work for Nash-Kelvinator (one of the forerunners of AMC) and when Nash-Kelvinator merged with Hudson to become American Motors Corporation, George was tapped to become CEO's. But that was still in an era when income tax rates were confiscatory and unless they owned stock, CEO's of major corporations did not become millionaires. It also was in a era when a million dollars was a lot more money than it is today.

So while George was upper middle class when Mitt was born and later rose to become upper class, it's quite believable that he wasn't a millionaire at the time.

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Quote from: Ignatius of Antioch

He that possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to bear his very silence. — Epistle to the Ephesians 3:21a

God forbid somebody choose to be born to wealthy parents. Mitt made such a poor choice when he chose his parents! He should have chosen to be born to other parents, preferably poor ones because there is nobility in being poor. George Romney did not deserve all of that income/wealth as a result of his time and labor. It all should have been sent to Washington, DC, so that our wise bureaucrats could redistribute it to hard-working welfare recipients.

« Last Edit: April 24, 2012, 09:17:33 pm by Politico »

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"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

God forbid somebody choose to be born to wealthy parents. Mitt made such a poor choice when he chose his parents! He should have chosen to be born to other parents. George did not deserve all of that income/wealth. All of it should have been sent to Washington, DC.

We would never of heard of Mitt if he hadn't been born to someone as rich and famous as his daddy.

God forbid somebody choose to be born to wealthy parents. Mitt made such a poor choice when he chose his parents! He should have chosen to be born to other parents. George did not deserve all of that income/wealth. All of it should have been sent to Washington, DC.

We would never of heard of Mitt if he hadn't been born to someone as rich and famous as his daddy.

Just like we never would have heard of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, etc. had they not been born to someone as rich and famous as their parents, right?

When did you become infected by Eurotrash propaganda, good sir?

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"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

God forbid somebody choose to be born to wealthy parents. Mitt made such a poor choice when he chose his parents! He should have chosen to be born to other parents, preferably poor ones because there is nobility in being poor. George Romney did not deserve all of that income/wealth as a result of his time and labor. It all should have been sent to Washington, DC, so that our wise bureaucrats could redistribute it to hard-working welfare recipients.

Despite being so over the top as to be laughable, Politico is giving a better defense of Romney's background than Romney himself has.

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Quote from: Ignatius of Antioch

He that possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to bear his very silence. — Epistle to the Ephesians 3:21a

God forbid somebody choose to be born to wealthy parents. Mitt made such a poor choice when he chose his parents! He should have chosen to be born to other parents. George did not deserve all of that income/wealth. All of it should have been sent to Washington, DC.

We would never of heard of Mitt if he hadn't been born to someone as rich and famous as his daddy.

Just like we never would have heard of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, etc. had they not been born to someone as rich and famous as their parents, right?

When did you become infected by Eurotrash propaganda, good sir?

Yes, we would have never heard of William Jefferson Blythe III or Leslie Lynch King, Jr. Oh wait.

God forbid somebody choose to be born to wealthy parents. Mitt made such a poor choice when he chose his parents! He should have chosen to be born to other parents. George did not deserve all of that income/wealth. All of it should have been sent to Washington, DC.

We would never of heard of Mitt if he hadn't been born to someone as rich and famous as his daddy.

Just like we never would have heard of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, etc. had they not been born to someone as rich and famous as their parents, right?

Personally, why support the new money when you can support a real blue blood, like Rawn Pawl.

I was going to support Romney, but now that I see his father wasn't born into money, I changed my mind.

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"the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away"For most of us the time we spend at our work is a large part of our whole lives, and as our job usually also determines the place where and the people among whom we live, some freedom in choosing our work is, probably, even more important for our happiness than freedom to spend our income during the hours of leisure.” - Hayek

God forbid somebody choose to be born to wealthy parents. Mitt made such a poor choice when he chose his parents! He should have chosen to be born to other parents, preferably poor ones because there is nobility in being poor. George Romney did not deserve all of that income/wealth as a result of his time and labor. It all should have been sent to Washington, DC, so that our wise bureaucrats could redistribute it to hard-working welfare recipients.

Precisely. An exploiter and class-enemy should automatically be disqualified from receiving the vote of any person who has to toil - that is, is exploited. The people should call for his beheading, not his election.